by Mark Felton
Regardless of Stauffenberg’s assurances that Hitler was dead, the stream of messages to the contrary from the Wolf’s Lair caused confusion and vacillation at the Bendlerblock. Generalmajor Stieff started informing on his fellow plotters, while Olbricht had clearly lost heart. By mid-evening the coup was faltering. When Kluge received word that Hitler was still alive he immediately overrode von Stülpnagel’s orders in Paris to arrest all SS, SD and Gestapo officials, dismissed von Stülpnagel from his post and denounced him to Keitel at the Wolf’s Lair.
Dr Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry was surrounded by Replacement Army troops who genuinely thought that the Nazi Party was attempting a coup against Hitler. Goebbels had first become aware that something was very wrong at between 2.00 and 3.00pm that afternoon when he had been awakened from his usual afternoon nap by a telephone call from Wilfried von Oven, head of the press office. Oven had just finished a call from an agitated Heinz Lorenz, deputy to Hitler’s press secretary Dr Otto Dietrich, informing him of the events at the Wolf’s Lair and issuing the text for a radio announcement from Hitler to the German people denouncing the coup. It was clear to Goebbels that the army was involved in some kind of uprising. Goebbels frantically telephoned around, trying to make sense of what was happening. Eventually he got through to Hitler who told him that the army was launching a putsch against him.19
Goebbels later called Hitler’s Armaments Minister Albert Speer over to his office and told him that a full-scale putsch was underway. Speer immediately offered Goebbels his help. It was then that Goebbels and Speer noticed Replacement Army troops were moving to cordon off the Propaganda Ministry building. Goebbels was also concerned that he could not locate Himmler, and also slightly suspicious that perhaps Himmler might be a part of the coup.
Goebbels summoned the commander of the troops surrounding the ministry, Major Otto Remer, a 32-year-old committed Nazi. He had taken the precaution of placing a small box of cyanide capsules into his tunic pocket before the meeting in case the plotters arrested him. When Remer explained that he had been ordered by the City Commandant, Generalleutnant Paul von Hase, to cordon off the government district because Hitler was dead, Goebbels retorted: ‘The Führer is alive! I spoke with him a few minutes ago.’20 Remer began to realise that he and his men had been duped. Goebbels got Hitler on the phone and handed the receiver to Remer. ‘Do you hear me? So I’m alive! The attempt has failed,’ said Hitler in a chilling voice. ‘A tiny clique of ambitious officers wanted to do away with me. But now we have the saboteurs of the front. We’ll make short shrift of this plague. You are commanded by me the task of immediately restoring calm and security in the Reich capital, if necessary by force. You are under my personal command for this purpose until the Reichsführer-SS arrives in the Reich capital!’21 Remer understood perfectly and went straight to work, moving his troops over to surround the Bendlerblock instead of the Propaganda Ministry after Goebbels had personally addressed the men in the Ministry garden. Nazi officials were released and order restored throughout Europe.22
At 6.30pm, Goebbels delivered a radio broadcast announcing that Hitler was alive and well. Between 8.00 and 9.00pm the army cordon around the government district was lifted. Later in the evening the coup was finished, with just a handful of the original plotters holed up in the Bendlerblock. Arguments began to break out among the plotters and those officers who had found themselves inside the building but were not connected with the plot. A group of staff officers led by Oberstleutnant Franz Herber who had not been party to the plot armed themselves and marched to Olbricht’s room. As they were talking to Olbricht shots were fired in the corridor outside and during the resulting melee Stauffenberg was shot in the shoulder. Herber and his men pressed into Fromm’s office where Stauffenberg and Generaloberst Erich Hoepner, former commander of the Fourth Panzer Army on the Eastern Front until dismissed and retired by Hitler in 1942, had retreated. Herber demanded to speak to Fromm who had been placed under guard in his apartment after his refusal to enact Operation Valkyrie. A rebellious officer went and told Fromm what had happened. Liberated, Fromm had the arrested plotters brought before him. ‘Well gentlemen, now I am going to do to you what you wanted to do to me this afternoon.’23
Fromm charged the plotters with high treason. Found guilty, they were sentenced to death. It was later discovered by the Gestapo that Fromm acted with such haste because he wanted to distance himself from the fact that he knew all about Stauffenberg’s plot but had chosen to remain silent, waiting to see which way the chips fell. Now Fromm decided to eliminate the witnesses to this fact and ingratiate himself with Hitler. He had also been informed that Himmler was on his way to take command.
Ludwig Beck attempted to commit suicide with a pistol that Fromm permitted him to retain for this purpose. Beck only managed to graze his forehead with the first shot. Trying again, Beck shot himself in the head, but he did not die. Instead, he writhed in agony on the floor of the office until Fromm had an army sergeant unceremoniously drag the grievously wounded general by his legs into an adjoining room where the NCO finished him off himself. Around midnight Fromm gave the following order to a subordinate: ‘Take a few men and execute the sentence downstairs in the yard at once.’24 Stauffenberg, von Haeften, Olbricht and Oberst von Quirnheim, Fromm’s former chief of staff, were taken out into the Bendlerblock’s courtyard and summarily shot by firing squad in front of a large pile of building sand. Stauffenberg’s last words before he was killed have gone down in history: ‘Long live sacred Germany!’25
Resistance to Hitler was ruthlessly purged, with most of those involved in the July Plot exposed, arrested, tried and executed. Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben, who was to have become head of state if the coup had succeeded, was slowly strangled at Plötenzee Prison with piano wire wound around a meat hook. Dr Carl Goerdeler and Erich Fellgiebel suffered the same fate, the hangings being filmed for Hitler to watch. Henning von Treskow decided upon suicide, going to the front in Russia and exploding a hand grenade beneath his chin. Eduard Wagner also committed suicide, shooting himself in the head three days after the plot failed, before the Gestapo arrested him. Among the many thousands who were arrested and murdered was Friedrich Fromm. His quick execution of Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Haeften and Quirnheim could not save him from arrest. The Gestapo failed to find enough proof linking him directly to the plot so he was instead charged with ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy.’ Fromm was shot on 12 March 1945.
Following the attack on Hitler, security at his headquarters was considerably strengthened. On the night of 20/21 July elements of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) arrived at the Wolf’s Lair and occupied all important areas, completely sealing off Sperrkreis I. LSSAH guards were also added to the FBB posts both inside and outside the complex, creating quite a bit of tension and argument between the SS and the Wehrmacht over jurisdictional issues. The LSSAH were finally withdrawn two weeks after Stauffenberg’s attack. On 13 November 1944, I and II SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Führer-Begleit-Kompanie LSSAH were added to Hitler’s escort detachment, marking a considerable increase in manpower and firepower.26 One noticeable result of the July Bomb Plot was Hitler’s increasing reliance upon the SS to guard him. The Army’s good name had been considerably tarnished at Führer Headquarters by the incident and even the FBB was held in some suspicion – after all the FBB’s founder and first commander, Erwin Rommel, was also revealed to have been part of the July Plot and was forced to commit suicide for the sake of his good name and that of his family.
At the Wolf’s Lair, administrative changes were immediately made by splitting the Commandant HQ, which had operated under direct orders from Keitel, into two separate parts. The first was the Lagerkommandant (Camp Commandant) who would be responsible for the administration of the site. The second post was Kampfkommandant (Battle Commandant), a post that was initially held by the newly promoted Oberst Remer, a reward for his successful crushing of the coup in the government district of Berlin. It is believed that a few
weeks after the July Plot the old system was quietly reintroduced and Remer was sent off to the front.27
New security procedures were also introduced for all those who were to be in the Führer’s presence. For the first time all briefcases were to be carefully checked and military officers were forbidden from wearing any weapons in Hitler’s presence, a new rule that extended to ceremonial daggers and swords.
One day soon after the new regulations came into force the arrival of Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop’s adjutant at Wolfsschanze created a major incident. Hauptmann Otting carried a briefcase that contained secret and sensitive Reich documents, and a rule stated that the holder of the briefcase had to also keep the means to hand to destroy those documents immediately if the need arose. In adherence to this regulation, when the RSD opened Otting’s briefcase for examination they discovered a number of secret files and tucked in beside them was a hand grenade and a small flask of petrol.28 Needless to say, the regulation was quietly ignored, but from then on such articles were never brought into the Wolf’s Lair again.
The security staff at the Wolf’s Lair expected more attacks in the wake of 20 July. Hauptmann Gaum, a company commander in the FBB, makes the hitherto unheard of claim that in Autumn 1944 ‘several Soviet sabotage bands were picked up . . . One party which was captured had intended to drop by parachute on the site of the FHQ [Führer Headquarters] but had been scared off by the intense Flak, which the Russian pilot imagined came from what he thought was an airfield.’ Gaum insisted that the wireless sets that the FBB captured from these sabotage bands were ‘turned round and used to maintain communications with the Russian home stations.’29
Gaum and his colleagues were most concerned by an Allied assault on the Wolf’s Lair by glider-borne troops. ‘Tactical exercises always bore this in mind.’ But, in Gaum’s opinion, ‘such an operation might have led to severe casualties among the guard troops at Rastenburg, but was not likely to have succeeded.’30 He believed that the RSD and the SS-Begleitkommando would have easily spirited Hitler to safety while the FBB tackled the enemy troops.
Following Stauffenberg’s bomb, visitors were now required to turn out the contents of their trouser and tunic pockets for inspection by the RSD, and, in a final humiliation, visitors were frisked. This new rule went down very badly with professional army officers but in the climate of fear that followed the bombing attempt no one was likely to publicly complain. The RSD even considered using an X-ray machine to examine briefcases and other packages more closely.
Although security around Hitler was considerably tightened, lapses still occurred. For example, at the end of July Hitler suddenly decided to visit those who had been injured in the conference hut bombing and who were being treated at Rastenburg Reserve Hospital in Karlshof, a treatment centre for wounded soldiers. Hauptmann Gaum actually encountered Hitler’s motorcade on the road during the day of the visit and noted that Hitler was travelling, as was his usual custom, in the passenger seat of the first open-topped black Mercedes next to his driver, while several SS adjutants rode in the back. In a departure from usual practice, on both running boards and standing on the back of the car were SS-Begleitkommando armed with machine pistols. Two more black cars followed Hitler’s; each filled with armed SS. Gaum estimated that the motorcade drove at 55 km/h.31
Hitler arrived at the hospital completely unannounced and was mobbed by convalescing soldiers the moment he stepped down from his Mercedes. Many of these crippled veterans had good reason to wish for harm to come to the man who had caused their injuries, but even at this late stage of the war most German soldiers remained loyal to their Führer and Hitler was only bothered for photographs. Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, was horrified by the risks his boss took. ‘Any of them could have killed him had they been so inclined. Although still suffering from wounds to his head and legs from the bomb he was so unmoved by it all that I became anxious for his safety and only relaxed when we finally drove off.’32
On 19 September Hitler was himself admitted to the same hospital for an X-ray. This time RSD and SS-Begleitkommando bodyguards descended upon the hospital an hour before Hitler arrived, carefully searched all of the rooms that the Führer would use, and posted guards at all of the entrances. The Führer arrived at the head of a three-car motorcade accompanied by his aides and adjutants.
According to one of Hauptmann Gaum’s fellow officers, who was received by the Führer after the July Bomb Plot, Hitler did not look well. ‘His face was pale and covered with loosely hanging flesh. Hitler himself complained that his doctors were a bad lot and that matter was still dripping internally from his ear [Hitler had suffered a burst eardrum in the bombing] on to his tongue.’33 Gaum saw Hitler quite regularly as part of his duties and noticed Hitler’s physical deterioration following the bombing. ‘It was noticeable . . . that one of the Führer’s hips was causing him pain.’34
One of Hitler’s doctors noticed something strange at the Wolf’s Lair when he was summoned to the Führerbunker on 1 October 1944 to examine the Führer. Hitler would complain of various medical problems caused by Stauffenberg’s bomb and required regular examinations and visits by doctors. On this occasion the doctor noticed that there was an automatic pistol on the night table beside Hitler’s bed. When Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, noticed the doctor staring at it he quickly put it out of sight inside a cupboard.35 Perhaps Linge thought that the doctor was tempted to snatch up the weapon and finish what Stauffenberg had begun.
Following the bombing there was a fair amount of recrimination amongst the senior officers around Hitler. Von Kluge had been relieved of his command and replaced by Walther Model on 17 August. Recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler, von Kluge rightly suspected that he would be arrested and punished over his links to the Stauffenberg plot in Paris so during the journey by car to Germany he had his driver pull over near Metz. Claiming that he was going to relieve himself, von Kluge took a cyanide pill. He was 61. Rommel, the Desert Fox and a national hero, required careful handling. Knowing that a public trial would damage Hitler’s standing with his people, the Führer decided that the 52-year-old Rommel would be quietly disposed of. Burgdorf was one of the two generals sent to persuade Rommel to kill himself. The field marshal took cyanide after being assured that his family would not be persecuted. He was given a state funeral and a statement was issued to the public explaining that Rommel had succumbed to injuries sustained by a car crash after his staff vehicle had been strafed in Normandy.
When Hitler left the Wolf’s Lair for the last time on 20 November 1944 for Berlin security was tight. A general ban on private correspondence and private telephone calls was instituted. FBB Hauptmann Gaum was of the opinion that censorship of mail and the monitoring of telephone calls was regularly carried out as part of the security clampdown following Stauffenberg’s bombing. Gaum believed that this spying was done by the Führer Nachrichten Abteilung (Führer Intelligence Unit) under the command of Hauptmann Wolf.36
The best opportunity to kill Hitler had been missed with the failure of Stauffenberg’s bomb. The resulting round ups, show trials and executions deeply alarmed the German officer corps and ensured their almost complete loyalty for the rest of the war. Hitler was on the move again, headed to the West where he would attempt to change the outcome of the war with one last desperate roll of the dice.
Chapter 10
Storm of the Century
‘Berlin stays German, Vienna will be German again, and Europe will never be Russian.’
Führer Proclamation, 15 April 1945
The thunder of Soviet guns could be heard along the line of the Rivers Oder and Neisse. It was 16 April 1945 and the final act in the drama of Hitler’s Germany had begun. Soviet Marshals Georgi Zhukov and Ivan Konev unleashed over 1.1 million men and thousands of tanks against the depleted German 9th Army and 4th Panzer Army that could muster barely 400,000 men.1 The final barrier to Berlin was the Seelow Heights, a line of steep hills behind the Oder. If the Red Army managed to smash
its way through the defence lines that had been hastily constructed over the preceding panicked weeks, then there was virtually nothing to stop them from reaching the Berlin suburbs. Stalin had set his sights on the Reich capital and was determined to capture it before the British or Americans. He had also set his sights on capturing Adolf Hitler, who was now deep underground inside his last field headquarters of the war – the Führerbunker.
Hitler had arrived in Berlin on 20 November 1944 from East Prussia. He would not go east again – in fact the Eastern Front was fast approaching his devastated capital. Hitler’s departure from the Wolf’s Lair was not taken as final at the time. Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel issued orders that ‘in view of the present situation on the Eastern Front’2 all preparations be made so that the Wolf’s Lair would not fall into Soviet hands intact. A detonation calendar for all the bunkers and huts was drawn up. Within twenty-four hours of the order, the Wolf’s Lair complex would be destroyed. The password was ‘Inselsprung’. On 4 December Keitel issued an order to keep the Wolf’s Lair and the Mauerwald army headquarters intact and ready for instant use, until further notice. In January 1945, as the Soviets swept into East Prussia, the code word was sent and engineers began to blow up the Wolf’s Lair. When the Red Army arrived they found that all of the significant parts of the structure, including the Führerbunker, had been wrecked.
Berlin was a considerably more dangerous billet for Hitler than his quiet forest HQ. He entered the reality of war. Bombed day and night by the USAAF and RAF, the city had suffered extensive damage. Although power and utilities were still functioning, Berliners were forced to take shelter constantly as the Allies rained down high explosives and incendiaries. All across Germany, aerial bombing was systematically levelling city after city as well as devastating road and rail links.
On 11 December Hitler and his entourage transferred by train and car to his western field headquarters, the Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Eyrie), near Ziegenburg, so he could direct the forthcoming Battle of the Bulge (see Chapter 4). Although managing to take the Allies by surprise and make some gains, by 25 January 1945 the German offensive had run out of steam and the Germans were forced onto the defensive with heavy losses in men and materiel.